


Stories in an Imperfect Medium

by concertconfetti



Series: Usher Foundation Satellite Office [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Elias is mentioned - Freeform, Gen, Mostly so the narrator can make a disgusted noise, Original Character(s), The Usher Foundation, archvies, as is Jonah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:29:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concertconfetti/pseuds/concertconfetti
Summary: Statement of Petra Moen, regarding the nature of her employment. Statement given by subject as part of the Usher Foundation Staff Oral History Initiative, accession number 2016/001. Recording made on 29 June, 2016.





	Stories in an Imperfect Medium

[recorder clicks on] 

**Archivist**

Right. This is...new. I’d heard the Head Archivist at Magnus started recording statements on magnetic tape, but for the life of me I don’t know why. He should just have to read them - not even out loud. (hmph) And they call  _ me _ the backup. 

Statement of Petra Moen, regarding...the nature of her employment. Statement given by subject as part of the Usher Foundation Staff Oral History Initiative, accession number 2016/001. Recording made on 29 June, 2016; Narrator is Petra Moen, Archivist.

Statement Begins. 

 

**Archivist [Statement]**

 

I’ve wanted to be an archivist since I was little. My mother worked in our local historical society, helping patrons with genealogies, mostly, but every once in a while she’d take me back to where they processed collections. All that personal knowledge, arranged and accessible. It was glorious. 

I emphasize personal knowledge because the fact that Abingdon, Illinois had a historical society in any other sense than to preserve the history of white families was laughable at the time. But to me it held the secrets of the town - everything that people wanted buried or hidden I could find if I knew where to look. When I was old enough, I spent time combing through boxes and reading through manuscripts, but those quickly bored me. There is only so much bickering about money and superiority you can read before you get the full shape of it. As secretive as the rich, white elite think they are, their lives are painfully simple and easy to map out. 

My family originally moved to the US from Samiland - my grandparents never taught their children their native tongue, and so I was left with a sore in the shape of the Sami people. I think that’s what drove me, initially - I wanted to know more about my people, and the people who archives so frequently forgot. Silence was unacceptable. 

So I found new archives and libraries, looking for stories and experiences. I talked to everyone I could about...anything. Their lives. Their parent’s lives. My mother and father never wanted to talk much about the Samit, so I found others from our communities and gathered folklore, cultural wounds. Hidden darknesses. 

My own archive of the worst things people had done. Or so I thought. 

I took the archives with me through my studies, graduating with an MS in Library and Information Sciences when I was 26; about 6 years ago, now. Seems like far longer. The job market wasn’t quite as vibrant as I had hoped, and I found myself couch-surfing in the D.C. area for most of that first summer out of grad school. I spent most of that time wandering aimlessly around the city during the day - I memorized most of the museum layouts and placards, and taken notes on the interesting entries at the Library of Congress. It was on a particularly hot day in the dead of July that I found the Usher Foundation. 

The archives at the Usher Foundation were open to the public that day - something about furthering independent research into the paranormal. I wasn’t interested in the paranormal at the time, not in the professional sense, and honestly, I wasn’t even drawn in by anything. I was simply looking for a novel experience, and a private archive opening to the public seemed novel enough to me. 

I’d love to say that the building tour and introduction of their new cataloging system interested me, but, to be quite honest, their archive was about three years behind even the most underfunded archives back in the midwest. They were short staffed, most of their records hadn’t been digitized, and the assistant giving me the tour looked overworked. When I asked about research at the Foundation, they laughed a dry, mirthless laugh and told me to leave. When I just stood there she took a long look at me, frowned, and sat me down at a desk. 

Within minutes, they placed an archival box on the desk. I remember the distinct feeling that I was being...judged. Not watched, not exactly, but considered like I was at a job interview. (Laughs) I suppose I was at a job interview.

I jumped at the opportunity to sit alone with the Foundation’s records, even if it was just this box for just today. I needed something new. That said I took things slowly. The documents in the box where delicate, older things written in various formats. Some were letters and others were more … traditional statements, I suppose, though I didn’t know it then. The first statement I pulled out was a curious one, written to the head of the Magnus Institute, London, in the 1800’s but was transferred to the Usher Foundation in 1975 due to “proximity to the entity and event.” Accession number 1975/0315, collection of Magnus Institute Transfers. I could find it on the shelf for you tomorrow without even looking up the box number - it’s seared itself into my memory and I am almost always aware of it now. 

I pulled it from storage this morning, in anticipation of this recording. As much as I don’t relish reliving experiences I’ve already observed, I never took this one directly. Nostalgia is a powerful drug. 

Excerpt from the Statement of Alice King, regarding the beings watching her. Statement given September 13th, 1875 in a letter to Jonah Magnus. 

 

**Archivist [Historical Statement]**

 

“...As I say, I don’t know you or your Institute all that well, but I moved to London in order to escape notice and that plan seems to have failed. They found me, the being in the mirrors. Why I thought their range extended only to those reflective places in my Virginia town, I haven’t the faintest clue. Perhaps it was my only hope. 

“And, of course, you asked. So here is what I know. 

“I first noticed the beings, tall, slender and silhouetted in my mirror after reading a book one of my suitors brought me in August. The book itself was plain, bound in a cracked leather that looked as if it hadn’t been properly oiled before binding. Franklin Mathers seemed relieved to be rid of the thing, to be honest, and I didn’t see him after the exchange, something I attributed to my brusk behavior to him previously. Now...I know he used me to try to escape. Vile man. 

“The book itself was unremarkable - it seemed to be an early, perhaps unedited edition of Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley I had expressed a passing interest in. I regret never reading the published version - perhaps I would have noticed the discrepancies and terror sooner. Still, I was grateful for the chance to read such a book without the intervention of my guardians at the time, so I hid it away in my room and read the book by night.

“It was Dr. Frankenstein whose behavior struck me as odd whilst I read. He seemed manic, desperate to find and prove theories that all at once seemed far fetched, much more so than the simple idea of creating life advanced in Shelley’s actual novel. Instead, Victor Frankenstein searched for ways of extracting information from the dead, including, yes, creating his Monster, but even this seemed off as the Monster seemed to be forced into helping Victor document his other experiments. One particular passage described how he’d commanded the Monster to ‘extract the brain from the skulls of children in the town. No one will miss them.’ 

“At this point, I had resolved to stop reading the book, and perhaps burn it, but when I did my hand would shake over the candle and there would be burning in the back of my head, and the closer I held the book to fire the stronger the pain would get. Instead, I hid the book in a wardrobe and forgot about it for three months time. 

 

“It was then that I saw them - the tall and sunken things that reminded me of the Monster in the book. They stood at the edges of reflections and seemed to me to be...watching. Waiting perhaps. Always waiting for something. The first time it happened they gave me such a fright I broke the mirror with my closed fist. Explaining that one to the doctor, when he came, was a trial. After that, I noticed the beings stood ever so closer to me. I’ve tried not to break the mirrors since then.” 

 

**Archivist [Return to Original Statement]**

 

I found the book Ms. King referred to in the storage of the Usher Foundation - I found myself there after putting the statement down, though I hadn’t been there during the tour. I couldn’t remember leaving the archive, or finding the book, but there it was in my hand. Seemed to me the best thing to do was take it back to the desk with me, and I started taking notes. Confirming details and making new notice of other, more disturbing parts of the book itself. I stopped where Ms. King indicated she had stopped reading, and looked up around me. The archives were dark - it was nearly three in the morning and my phone buzzed with a ninth missed call from my current roommate, David “Dai” Evans, each with an increasingly worried voice message. 

Across from me sat two people - one I recognized as Aleena Chan, head of the Usher Foundation and the person who’d greeted me when I walked into the building. The other I would come to know as Elias Bouchard, though he didn’t bother introducing himself at the time. 

“Hello, Petra,” Aleena said, with a slight nod to my phone. “You might want to give your friend there a call before we get started.” 

I nodded weakly, and let Dai know I’d be home late. “Job interview,” I’d said, though I didn’t know why. In the corners of my phone, I could see long, looming figures, like the ones the statement had described. But more than that I felt that judgment, like the eyes of uncountable, Untold Others were watching and waiting to see what I would do next. 

I never asked Aleena why she knew my name. Perhaps I should have. Maybe she would have been honest with me. It wouldn’t have mattered. I signed the paperwork to join the foundation as an archival assistant the next morning, given that was the only way to “protect me from the book,” as Elias had put it. 

This job hasn’t protected me from anything. It’s only ever taken, as should be expected with my patron. I do my best to maintain an amicable arrangement with The Eye, though I try to give my assistants fair warning when they come in for an interview. “This is a job you won’t be able to leave.” Some take me up on the warning, which is enough for me. 

I wonder how long I’ll keep giving people an out--- [door opens] 

 

**Archival Assistant**

 

Hey boss, I had a question on -- Oh, I didn’t know you were recording. 

 

**Archivist**

 

It’s fine, Sarah, I’m just testing the equipment for the oral history project. What did you need? 

 

**Archival Assistant**

 

Well, it’s -- the instructions you gave me said to read the statements out loud and record them on a tape recorder? Isn’t that a bit archaic?

 

**Archivist**

 

Says the girl who wants to microfilm our entire collection. 

 

**Archival Assistant**

 

It would save. Room.

 

**Archivist**

 

Right. I don’t know what to tell you, Sarah. Aleena asked us to maintain some form of consistency with our sister organizations and London has started preserving statements in the form of audio files and cassette tapes.

 

**Archival Assistant**

 

But that’s asinine--

 

**Archivist**

 

I am well aware of that, but we have to comply for the time being. You should only have one or two statements that require the recorder per week if that helps. 

 

**Archival Assistant**

 

It doesn’t.

 

**Archivist**

 

I know. Just...start working on that box I assigned you for now and I’ll be by your desk in a minute to go over everything. Sound good? 

 

**Archival Assistant**

 

Sounds better than nothing.  [sounds of a person leaving the room; door closing]

 

**Archivist**

 

[sighs] You don’t know the half of it, Sarah. Not yet, at least. Test statement for the Oral History project ends. We’ll see if this works for Aleena for now. 

Recording ends. [recorder clicks off]

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series made for a tabletop game I'm planning on running based on the Magnus Archives. 
> 
> If you want to read another statement in this series, check out [ In the Horizon, I see Eternity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18435590) by ActualWritesThings


End file.
